"alexs" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:<an open letter to the Wall Street Journal>
Letters Editor,
The Wall Street Journal26 October, 2004
Dear Editor:
I should like to turn Dr. Kross' argument (Letters to the Editor, 26 Oct)
back on himself, in that recommendations like
Quoted message said:his also contribute to rising health-care costs. His notion that statin
drugs are a "cheap" way to lower one's LDLs is
Quoted message said:fine for keeping certain profits high, but is not so good for the
consumer.
Quoted message said:
On the approval of an open-minded MD, I started taking 1500 mg/day of
plain, cheap nicotinic acid, a.k.a. niacin or
Quoted message said:vitamin B3. Ninety days later, I had lowered my total cholesterol to 172
from 244, and my LDL cholesterol to 84 from
Quoted message said:178, all for about 15 cents a day. Those levels are actually a bit low,
and have since backed off the niacin to 1000
Quoted message said:mg/day.
Instead of inspiring terror in pharmaceutical companies and orthodox
medicine, I would suggest that such success stories
Quoted message said:as mine be taken as a strong hint to rethink market strategies and look
for profit streams elsewhere. The groundswell of
Quoted message said:well-informed patients and nutritional medicine's coming of age are going
to shut down certain market segments whether
Quoted message said:the current players like it or not.
<signed, etc...>
NB comparison: based on survey of Canadian-pharmacy and mail-order vitamin
suppliers:
Quoted message said:
daily dose of Lipitor: $1.40-2.00 per day, depending on strength, say
10-40 mg/day
Quoted message said:
daily dose of nicotinic acid: $0.11-0.16 per day, 1000-1500 mg/day<do the math, folks. Apologise for the crossposts>
Good post!
I too have had very good results with niacin. It only costs about 7 cents
per day for 3000 mg (purchased in bulk at CostCo).
FWIW, the current issue of the New Yorker (Oct. 25th) has an article about
prescription drug costs. The main conclusion of the article is that the
rising overall costs of prescription drugs are not caused so much by
increasing costs of the drugs, as by the increasing volumes of
prescriptions. Simply put, more people are being prescribed more drugs than
ever before. We're a nation of pill-poppers, and somebody has to pay the
bills.
We also are influenced by the advertising, so folks with heartburn whose
primary problem is that they eat too much [censored] every day go to their doctor
and ask for a prescription for Nexium, because they saw it advertised on TV.
Of course, they could just eat a better diet, which would cost $0. Failing
that, they could get a prescription for generic Prilosec (very inexpensive).
But, no...they saw it on TV and the doc will prescribe it, and the insurance
company will pay for it. And then they whine when their co-pays go up. And
yet, we think of ourselves as a nation of self-sufficient, rugged
individuals (LOL).
GG